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The Steamboat Springs City Council voted 4-3 on June 17th to fund Mad Rabbit, with a second vote 4-2 on July 1st. According to the Steamboat Pilot, “Councilors Michael Buccino, Steve Muntean, Amy Dickson and Joella West voted to approve the funding, while Council President Gail Garey and councilor Dakotah McGinlay voted against it. Councilor Bryan Swintek was not present at the meeting.” In total, $1.6 million of city funds will be transferred from the City to the Forest Service for Mad Rabbit construction. We want to thank those of you in Routt County and beyond who wrote to the City Council to redirect the funding elsewhere, such as the Core Trail and its network of trails. While it is painful to come up one vote short, we should all be proud of supporting wildlife and wild places in Routt County and the original 2A ballot referendum that was passed largely due to Core Trail support. We believe that City Council should have stayed within the bounds of the Steamboat Trails Alliance 2A trail list and not funded three of the Mad Rabbit trails which were not part of the 2A list that was promoted to and approved by the voters. It is unfortunate that City Councilors Buccino, Muntean, Dickson and West chose to circumvent the will of the voters. This may have given them a short-term win, but at a long-term cost. Indeed, the Steamboat City Council’s approval rating in the most recent city survey is a dismal 35%. They may choose to ask the voters of Steamboat to pass future controversial measures, such as a property tax or a new Brown Ranch annexation, and City Council credibility will be paramount on whether these measure will pass. After all, how can a citizen trust the City to execute a referendum’s details faithfully if they have a track record of ignoring the referendum after it is passed?
In fact, our attorney addressed this specific point in a letter sent to the City Council the day of the final vote. There, he quoted a state District Court Judge who opined in a similar case on the front range:
“A voter could say with every justification, if this case is decided in favor of the city, ‘Why should we vote for the city to have several million dollars to make certain improvements when they can turn around after the ordinance is passed and use the money for something else? Why should we vote for it? We just won’t.’”
Indeed. The Mad Rabbit experience highlights the need for a conservation watchdog in Routt County. All of this comes on the aftermath of the Forest Service unilaterally altering the Adaptive Management Plan they had cooperatively developed with Colorado DNR/CPW. While Mad Rabbit is entering a new phase, one we will be engaged with, there will be other projects that equally require the engagement of KRW. We will continue to be engaged and advocate for Routt County wildlife and wild places.
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